So, you finally woke up after snoozing the alarm for multiple times. Checked your Facebook, got freshened up, and stood in front of the mirror figuring out what to wear, only to realize that you are already late for work. You rush out to the office and do your work still feeling sleepy. By afternoon you are out of energy and all you want is to get home and hit the pillow.
If this sounds too familiar to you, then you are at the right place for help. The advancement in cognitive science and the increased number of studies have provided us with very accurate information on how you can transform your entire day just by tweaking your morning routine.
However, before you get into that, you must learn a little bit about self-control and a psychological term called ego depletion.
Importance of self-control and willpower
From time to time we tend to think of self-control or willpower, as an infinite resource. Parents and elders often motivate us by saying that with more willpower you can accomplish anything you want. On the other end, they blame us for failures by pointing out that we didn't put enough willpower into the goals as successful people did.
According to researchers at Nottingham University , "despite the human capacity to regulate the self, many behavioral and social problems stem from persistent lapses of self-control". "Problems from obesity, drug abuse, violent crime, inability to manage finances have their roots, directly or indirectly, in self-regulation failure", says in the paper titled ' Ego Depletion and the Strength Model of Self-control' .
Ego depletion
However, one of the recent breakthrough in the study of will power and self-control pioneered by Roy Baumeister of University of Queensland points out that willpower draws from a limited "reservoir" of self-control that, when depleted, results in reduced capacity for further self-regulation.
It means our will power is similar to a muscle in our body. Just as a muscle requires energy to exert force over a period of time, actions that demand high self-control also require strength and energy to perform.
Similarly, "as muscles become fatigued after a period of sustained exertion and have reduced capacity to exert further force, willpower can also become depleted when demands are made of self-control resources over a period of time". Baumeister and colleagues termed this state of diminished self-control 'ego depletion'.
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